Road use charge/VMT discussion in US Congress - Oberstar, Blumenauer

House transportation committee chairman James Oberstar is hot for implementing a vehicle-miles charge to take over from the failing gasoline tax as part of the next 5-year federal financing bill, the XYZ-TEA. In a back and forth with Rep Earl Blumenauer (Dem OR) in a committee hearing Tuesday April 29 Oberstar said that a VMT (vehicle miles traveled) charge was something "we have to do" and is "going to be done."

Blumenauer from Portland Oregon urged the committee to extend VMT charges as trialed in Oregon to pilot programs in all fifty states, calling VMT the "transportation funding program for the future."

Oberstar responded saying: "Why do we need a pilot program? Why don't we just phase this in?"

The committee chairman said a moment later: "There are many suggestions it will take five or ten years. I think it can be done far less than that, maybe two years."

He said he was "at a point of impatience with more studies" and said he proposes "an action program" the beginning of which might be a "meeting of all the best thinktank minds" with committee members to "get all the ideas out on the table and work on an implementation program."

A spokesman for Oberstar, Jim Berard, told us gasoline/diesel taxes are a steadily diminishing source of revenue and increasingly inequitable as hybrids and other fuel efficient technologies spread. A miles traveled charge is the logical alternative.

Opportunity for decentralized road charges?

We asked Berard if Oberstar saw this as an exclusive federal charge, and whether states, local and private road providers could use the onboard charging equipment for funding their roads independent of any federal charge.

Berard said he didn't see why not.

And would vehicle charges be differentiated by type of vehicle, type of road and time traveled to allow more discriminating pricing to reflect different costs and scarcity of roadspace?

Berard said the discussion of a VMT hasn't got to that level of detail yet, but he didn't think there was likely to be any prohibition on other levels of government taking advantage of the technology.

AP uses the T-word

The Associated Press in their report of the discussion said the Oberstar and Blumenauer were considering a vehicle miles "tax" rather than a charge. That's incorrect. At no point in the discussion did either use the T-word. (see transcript below)

A tax simply raises money and provides nothing specific in return whereas a charge is a payment for a service received - in this case the use of a road.

Oberstar wants revenue but equipment/systems would offer choices

Oberstar is clearly motivated mainly by the revenue raising potential of road use charges to fund federal aid programs.

But the charging equipment is most useful if used for more discriminating pricing.

Between the extremes of a light car driving on a 2 lane rural road in Kansas or Iowa and a tractor trailer on the Cross Bronx Expressway in New York City in the weekday rushour there are scores of trip combinations that justify differentiating road use charges by time, place and vehicle type.

Providing roadspace for a vehicle mile traveled varies so enormously from place to place, and from time to time, and with different weights and classes of vehicle that it would be highly inequitable and inefficient to have a uniform per-mile charge.

Odometers would do for crude VMT charge

A uniform vehicle-mile charge could be collected with periodic reads from the old odometer (the standard mileage meter).

The charging technologies being discussed allow differentiated pricing, or different toll rates on different classes or categories of roads, differentiated by vehicle characteristics and, in congested areas, differentiated by time of day or level of congestion.

Parking too

Sometimes it's called TDP for Time-Distance-Place pricing but given the need to differentiate Vehicle type it probably needs to be called TDPV pricing. It could be not only for pricing travel on roads but for more flexible parking charges also.

Existing toll roads could make use of the TDPV equipment to collect their tolls. Local road service providers whether state, local government or investor concessions could use the system. It would be their choice how they structured their pricing.

GPS

The German nationwide truck tolling system Toll Collect and the Oregon trials both used Siemens GPS or satellite location finding units and roadside DSRC readers or readers at gasoline stations. The Oregon system took the road use charge computed from GPS measurement of travel and deducted the gasoline tax payment. In this model you paid the road use charge or the gasoline tax, and the transaction occurred right at the pump.

If the travel data in the onboard unit was coded by different roads, the different road use providers could each receive payments due to them - as tolls are received.

Skymeter out of Toronto Canada is pushing much less expensive GPS and TransCore is ready with equipment from their GPS division.

see Skymeter paper:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/sites/default/files/skymeter.pdf

But gantry or pole based readers and transponders can also be used.

Cameras to read license plates will be needed whether the onboard equipment is GPS or terrestrial transponders since there will always be vehicles without onboard equipment or with equipment that isn't working.

The GPS-only enthusiasts like Skymeter and Siemens say transponder systems need too much roadside gear. Bt so does GPS. A lot of cameras are going to be needed to enforce charges on vehicles without functioning on-board GPS units. Once you set up a network of cameras you can add terrestrial transponder readers at each camera site quite cheaply, so the supposed roadside cost advantage of GPS disappears.

5.9GHz

5.9GHz OmniAir, the next generation design for terrestrial transponder-reader systems will incorporate GPS in each unit so it will support TDPV road use pricing by either satellite location finding or terrestrial readers.

Various mobile telephone type technologies at 2.4GHz may also be available to support TDPV road use charges also.

Most likely different equipment systems - GPS, transponders, mobile telephony, license plate reading cameras -  will  be available to implement the road use charges envisaged.

COMMENT: Committee chairman Oberstar is correct that there needs to be an action program rather than more pilot studies. There is plenty of technology available now to implement TDPV pricing and the more implementation there is the better the technology will become.

Small pilot programs do little to advance technology. Only large orders for equipment do that.

Procurement needs to specify performance in accumulating and transmitting certain TDPV data, not the technology, and allow a variety of equipment and technologies to be deployed, so long as each can do the job.

Systems will evolve and change with experience and changing needs.

A complete and comprehensive pricing system will take many years but using the base of an existing 25m to 30m toll transponders and cameras in toll-heavy parts of the country over other major roads and using a mix of transponders, cameras and GPS elsewhere, a substantial TDPV charge system could probably be in place in two to three years.

Insistence on a single technology would be a high-risk, slow approach. Multiple technologies competing on the road will be lower risk and quicker.

Transcript

Transcript of the relevant parts of the Oberstar-Blumenauer exchange on VMT at the House Transportation Committee hearing 2009-04-29:

Blumenauer: "In pursuit of more resources and for the future I strongly urge that you include in this bill an expanded pilot project on vehicle miles traveled. We've been pioneering that work in oregon. Please help us extend it to all fifty states so that together we can design a transportation funding program for the future."

Oberstar: Why do we need a pilot program? Why don't we just phase this in? It is going to be done. It is something we have to do. Why not just move it ahead. I think it can be done... There are many suggestions it will take five or ten years. I think it can be done far less than that, maybe two years.

Blumenauer: I agree with you. I think we are further along both with the technology and the understanding if we don't move to a vehicle miles traveled formula, if we are locked into a downward spiral that is going to make your job and our job on Ways and Means untenable. the reason I suggested expanding our (Oregon) pilot project as we've been able to get more people involved they get more comfortable with it I think the impediment to a national vehicle miles traveled is less technological than it is in terms of public perception. I sincerely believe that if you would help us with a pilot project that could be undertaken on a voluntary basis in every state in the union we would be able to increase the public awareness and comfort and it would hasten the day that we could make the transition. I have been very pleased with the reaction has been to the pilot project. If you would put this in your reauthorization so we could do it in the next couple of years across America I think we could build acceptance and awareness and we could refine it

Oberstar: Under other circumstances I think that would be a very thoughtful suggestion but I prefer to have Mr DeFazio convene a meeting of all the best thinktank minds, not a hearing, but a meeting...err, engaged with the Republican and the Democratic and  sides of the committee and have a discussion to get all the ideas out on the table and work on an implementation program. I'm at a point of impatience with more studies.

Blumenauer; I'm sorry if I misspoke. I'm not talking about a study. I am talking about demonstrating in each state in the union how it works and raising the comfort level and answering the questions that people have.

Oberstar: Pilot is in the category of a study. I think we need an action program.

Transcript made by TOLLROADSnews made from this video of the session:

http://transportation.edgeboss.net/wmedia/transportation/20090428ht.wvx

TOLLROADSnews 2009-04-30